In 2021, following the U.S. exit from Afghanistan, Pakistan was cast aside in key international capitals as a basket case, a country grappling with political and economic instability and a rising wave of terrorism. The country was surviving on loans from the International Monetary Fund and friendly countries.
However, in a remarkable turnaround, the country has revived its strategic and diplomatic relevance due to the rapidly evolving geopolitical dynamics in West Asia. This is primarily due to a fundamental change in West Asia’s perception of Pakistan following its May 2025 military conflict with India. Until then, Pakistan’s West Asian partners had largely forgotten its role as a regional stabilizer.
Not only did the Pakistani narrative hold its own against unsubstantiated Indian allegations of its role in the April 22 terrorist attack at Pahalgam, but its impressive battlefield performance also proved to be a game changer.
After the May 2025 conflict with India, Pakistan signed a security pact with Saudi Arabia, binding the two longstanding allies in a NATO-like framework. Then, in January 2026, Pakistan officially joined the Trump administration’s Gaza Peace Board underpinned by the close personal ties that Pakistani military chief Field Marshal Asim Munir had swiftly built with U.S. President Donald Trump. It is important to mention that the Pakistani-Saudi defense pact and participation in the Gaza Peace Board stemmed from the Trump administration’s reassessment that it was difficult to simultaneously forge constructive partnerships with India and Pakistan within the same regional security framework due to the intractable nature of their rivalry.
Under Washington’s new global strategy of “burden shifting” and “burden sharing,” India has been positioned within the Indo-Pacific, while Pakistan is being encouraged to play a larger role in West Asia, Central Asia and Afghanistan.
Keeping this in view, Pakistan’s security pact with Saudi Arabia should be seen as an arrangement complementing the U.S.-led regional security architecture in West Asia rather than replacing it. The Saudis roped Pakistan into a strategic pact following signals from the Trump administration that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were West Asia’s main powers and they had to play a more assertive role to manage the regional security.
The most pivotal shift came when the U.S. and Israel invaded Iran and the latter closed the Strait of Hormuz, resulting in a deadlock with far-reaching consequences for global energy markets. Three factors compelled Pakistan to step in as a mediator, help Tehran and Washington reach a ceasefire, and host the first-ever face-to-face talks between Iran and the U.S. top leadership since 1979. Although the Islamabad talks failed to achieve a breakthrough, Pakistan has continued its backdoor diplomacy to help both sides reach an agreement to end the war. These developments involving Pakistan’s proactive diplomacy have further entrenched its role in West Asia, not just as a security partner but a diplomatic actor as well.
The foremost factor that prompted Pakistan to offer itself as a mediator was its security pacts with Riyadh and friendly ties with Tehran. If the Iran war broadened, dragging other Gulf states into it, Pakistan would have been asked by the Saudis to kinetically enter the war on its side under their 2025 mutual defense pact.
For Pakistan’s overstretched security forces, battling two full-fledged insurgencies in its western provinces, while also embroiled in a military conflict with Afghanistan and maintaining a fragile ceasefire with India along its eastern border since the May 2025 conflict, sparing troops for active combat in West Asia would have been difficult.
In such a volatile security environment, entering the war against Iran on behalf of the Saudis would have rendered three of Pakistan’s four borders vulnerable while also complicating the delicate sectarian harmony at home.
The second factor is Pakistan’s dependence on the flow of foreign remittances and energy supplies from the Gulf. Over 4.5 million Pakistanis work in the Gulf states, primarily in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and they account for 54 percent of the country’s foreign remittances. Likewise, Pakistan is heavily dependent on fuel imports from the Gulf countries. The disruption of energy supplies and foreign remittances due to the U.S.-Israel-Iran war would have compromised Pakistan’s fragile economic situation. When the war broke out, Pakistan’s economy had just begun to improve.
Nonetheless, unlike other Gulf countries, Pakistan is uniquely positioned to mediate the U.S.-Iran talks from a position of neutrality. It neither hosts a U.S. military base nor has it taken part in the war kinetically. Furthermore, during the 12-day Israel-Iran war last year, Pakistan condemned the Israeli action and defended Iran’s right to self-defense, a fact that has not been lost on the Iranian leadership. The then Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, hailed Pakistan’s stance and support. At the same time, Pakistan is also close to the Trump administration while having cordial ties with China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Egypt. So, not only has Pakistan enjoyed the trust of Iran and the US to mediate, but it also has the diplomatic reach to lead a coordinated diplomatic effort for negotiations.
The third and most consequential factor is Pakistan’s geography. It is both a strategic advantage as well as a source of vulnerability for the South Asian nation. Pakistan is uniquely positioned between South and West Asia, and China and the Arabian Sea. Pakistan is “too exposed to ignore the conflict [in West Asia] and too relevant to be overlooked.”
Islamabad is still working with Tehran and Washington through diplomatic backchannels to end the war. Though gaps remain in reaching a final agreement, both sides have substantially narrowed their differences. Irrespective of the outcomes of the U.S.-Iran talks, Pakistan’s expanded role in West Asia as a security stabilizer and an assertive diplomatic actor is here to stay. This renewed role is neither accidental nor temporary. Rather, it is a byproduct of several structural factors, which have been unfolding over the last several years and were accelerated by developments over the last year.
As a key middle-power and geopolitical actor, Pakistan’s assertive role in West Asia will have far-reaching consequences not only for the emerging regional security architecture but for the country’s strategic posture in South Asia as well.
Pakistan’s internal situation sharply contrasts with its external gains. The larger question that begs an answer is what material benefits these external achievements will bring for the country’s economy, security and energy market. The real test of Pakistan’s hybrid regime will be to leverage any external gains for improving internal capacity and institutional gaps.
Failure to bridge external gains and internal instability will turn opportunities arising from West Asia’s evolving order into short-term gains for the politico-military elite.
